Thread by @senamisomoyo

It’s #IPThursday Good People! The following thread tells the story of N!xau, the man who starred in “The Gods Must Be Crazy”.

The question to ask yourself is, to what extent should film companies be responsible in improving the lives of their poor and illiterate artists?

Our story this week begins in 1980, at the peak of apartheid. Jacobus “Jamie” Uys (pronounced “Eys”)wanted to make a film that would distract the people from the problems facing SA. His ultimate goal was to make a slapstick comedy based on two worlds colliding.

He decided to tell the story based off the Khoisan people of the Kalahari. His idea was produce a documentary style comedy showing a khoisan interacting with modern civilization for the very first time.

Such a project would need a lot of money though, and Uys got it from the SA Film subsidy program provided by the apartheid government. Obviously, this came with certain conditions on how the script would go. The big one being that it should not reflect the divided state of RSA.

Uys got funding and then set out to find a star for his film. He wanted someone who looked the part, would speak in clicks and dress in a loin thong. So he went to one of the few places in Africa where you could find Khoisan communities, Namibia.

It was in Tsumkwe, rural Namibia where Uys met the star of our story, N!xau Toma. Uys claimed that N!xau was a bushman and he was only the second white man N!xau had ever come across.

He also claimed N!xau lived far away from civilisation and had no regard for money or material things.....These claims will be very important later on.

The film was called The Gods Must Be Crazy. If your partner doesn’t know it, they are too young for you! The plot concerns how a coke bottle lands in Xixo’s family and causes them problems. So Xixo, tries to return it to the Gods by throwing it off the edge of the world.

In the process, he has hilarious encounters with civilisation. Who can forget the scene when he gets arrested for hunting someone else’s goats.

Although he was illiterate, N!xau was incredibly intelligent and they were able to make the movie successfully (with the use of translators of course). It was released in 1981 and became a huge success over the years. It was the highest grossing movie out of SA at the time.

Upon its release, the movie received huge praise from viewers overseas and in the film industry. However, in SA it was criticized by academics and anti-apartheid activists for a lot of reasons.

1. it misrepresented the San people and their way of life.
2. it poked fun at revolutionary movements, painting them out as silly and disorganised.

3. It was used by the apartheid government to push the narrative overseas that black people were happier in their native homelands. A lot of Americans actually believed this.
4. The use of a narrator to describe Xi’s adventure like wildlife doccie was seen as dehumanizing.

However, at its core, it was still a funny movie to watch an most people looked past the problematic stuff. In 1982, it was the highest grossing film in Japan and it was making millions worldwide.

It influenced a lot of future slapstick comedy films in SA. It has grossed well over $200 million USD through cinema, cassettes and DVDs. It brought Uys instant fame and made N!xau a global star. There was one big issue,N!xau was not getting money from this performance.

I’ve explained what Royalties and Residuals are in previous threads, but here‘s #tbt: A royalty is money paid to the author/owner of a protected work for each public play or airing of the IP work. A residual is money usually paid to a performer and diminishes with each airing.

Usually the amount of money thats paid to you, will depend on the contract you sign with the producers. The idea is that you are compensated for each airing of the show long after your initial payment. As long as its still on a TV screen somewhere. The contract is most important.

In a perfect world, N!xau would have been an instant millionaire for acting in The Gods Must Be Crazy. A lot of us 90s babies grew up on the film. However, it was not the case.

I’m not sure if N!xau had a contract but he was paid R1,200 for his role and thereafter he did not get more than $2000 in future payments. Uys said that when they gave him $300 in cash, he threw it and the wind blew it away. Back then the rand and dollar were almost on par.

Lets actually unpack some of Uy’s claims now. Remember how he claimed he met N!xau in the bush somewhere with no regard for money or civilisation and he lived on just good vibes? Well that was a lie.

N!xau was actually easy to find. He did not wear animal skins all day, he wore normal clothes. He may have been illiterate but he was not a “bushman” or unaware of civilisation and he had seen white people before. He was a rural, khoisan Namibian.

Uys also added more clicks to the Language to make it sound more exotic, the San people actually do not speak with a click in each and every sentence. A lot of it was gibberish.

Most importantly, N!xau actually had a job. He was a cook for one of the local schools in his area, he was not a hunter as Uys claimed. Although he lived in the rural areas, he definitely knew the value of money and he was already being paid R300 a week as a cook.

However, Uys pushed the narrative that N!xau the bushman had no use for money and as such, did not need to be paid in terms of his Performers rights. On top of the little money they paid him and the supporting cast, they also gave them cattle.

The last image the viewer sees of N!xau in the movie is his character, Xi, leaving a pile of money behind before he returns, much happier, to his family. In reality, the actor was being paid very poorly by Uys himself. Historian, even Peter Davis had an issue with this.

In my view, this narrative was used to not only avoid paying N!xau, but it was used by the SA government itself to keep the San community marginalized. With fences up and hunting regulations in force, the reality is most San people were unable to self sustain in the bush.

Sadly, many people worldwide took the movie as an accurate reflection of the khoisan people. At a time when they were still being displaced from their land and suffering from hunger, the movie portrayed them as happy and at peace.

In a money world, they still needed money to survive and N!xau was no exception. After the success of the film throughout the 80s. N!xau continued to live in relatively poor conditions, despite being famous worldwide. Uys and a US film company decided to make a sequel and cash in

So in 1989, they brought N!xau in to film The Gods 2, which would have more focus on his kids. This time, N!xau asked for more money. Its rumoured he was then paid “a few hundred thousand” so that he could finally build his family a house with a water pump.

N!Xau himself said in an interview that he did not want to act in the film because the portrayal of the khoisan was inaccurate.

However, the important part is that N!xau never said he didn’t value money. He just said the little money he was paid could not make much of a difference for his family. So he wanted “proper help” that would uplift his community.

Although it didn’t make as much money as the first, the second movie bagged a lot of cash and it was enjoyable too. Who can forget this classic scene. It made N!xau an even bigger star overseas. Thereafter, production companies in Asia wanted him......and they got him.

Uys signed a deal with a Hong Kong company to produce more movies based on The Gods. This is where things got really weird. The next movie was Crazy Safari. Here Xixo becomes a “Kung Fu Bushman” who can fight and knows Karate. It even featured Bruce Lee.....Ngethuke kabi

The next was Crazy Hong Kong. N!xau, the illiterate bushman who didn’t understand English was shipped off to Asia to act in more comedies despite his reluctance to act. Making them more money. Yhu...👏🏾🙌🏾

He then went to China and starred in “The Gods Must Be Funny In China”. He also toured France and the USA, becoming a cult figure in the process. They made him appear in shows, photoshoots and exhibitions.

As his popularity grew, Chinese companies started making dolls and different N!xau merchandise from his image. I doubt he got money for his image rights.

Whether he enjoyed this, only he knows I guess but from his interviews rejecting the work, I’d think he didn’t. The general view was still that “N!xau did not care about material things”. I’m not sure how much money he was actually paid during this period.

Uys received a lot of criticism for his his exploitation of N!xau. The reality is that his family still lived in poor conditions. Uys then decided to give him a monthly stipend so that he could survive. Uys died shortly thereafter in 1996 at the age of 74.

N!xau continued touring overseas for some years, however, over the years his stardom faded and with that the money he could make the Asian companies. When he was no longer profitable, N!xau came back and went to live back home in Namibia.

The media reported that he sold a lot of the gifts he received overseas to buy cattle and live the bush life.

One day in 2003, N!xau went out into the bush and never came back. They found his body after a while. He died at the estimated age of 59. No one really knew when his birthday was.

The circumstances here were ripe for exploitation. N!xau was poor, illiterate and I’m not sure if he had a contract. If he did, I doubt the terms were favourable at all. It was standard procedure back then to exploit black artists (see my thread on Shaka Zulu).

Big Lesson: N!xau would have benefited from having someone manage his affairs. And I do think film directors have a responsibility to improve the life and communities of their actors, especially if they are making millions off them. Stay Safe Good People!!! ✌🏾❤️💛💚

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